This document offers a brief description of every variable included in the subset of the Portraits of American Life Dataset presented in the file palsStrictPartic.dta. Only 1196 of the observations and 28 variables are included. One of these 28 variables (strictness) was coded using Iannccone's (1994) expert data on denominational strictness.

The full data are available at: http://www.thearda.com/pals/. Please visit this site and contact the original producers, even if you plan to use this subset.

Usage of these data requires citation of the following sources:
*Emerson, Michael O. and David Sikkink. 2006. Portraits of American Life Study, 1st Wave. 

*Emerson, Michael O., David Sikkink, and Adele D. James. 2010. "The Panel Study on American Religion and Ethnicity: Background, Methods, and Selected Results." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49:162-171.

*Iannaccone, Laurence R. 1994. "Why Strict Churches Are Strong." American Journal of Sociology 99(5):1180-1211. 

VARIABLE DESCRIPTION
*resp_zri: Respondent identification variable.
*vote: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent voted in the 2004 election.
*po_sign: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent signed a petition in the past year.
*po_work: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent worked for a candidate or party in the past year.
*po_contact: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent contacted a public official in the past year.
*po_persuade: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent attempted to persuade someone's vote in the past year.
*po_attend: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent attended a political meeting or rally in the past year.
*po_gave: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent gave money to a party, group, or candidate in the past year.
*po_workrel: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent worked for a religious organization involved principally in politics in the past year.
*po_demonstrate: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent participated in a demonstration or protest in the past year.
*participation: Sum of the previous nine indicators, providing a count from zero to nine of how many acts of political participation the respondent engaged in.
*strictness: Measure of denominational strictness based on Iannaccone's (1994) survey of sixteen religious scholars.
*hr_age: Age of respondent in years.
*education: Six point scale of respondent's education. Pre=standardized values: 1=no high school diploma; 2=GED; 3=high school; 4=some college; 5=bachelor's degree; 6=graduate degree.
*dm_income: 19-point scale of household income.
*hr_gender: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent is male.
*black: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent is African-American.
*hispanic: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent is Hispanic.
*other: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent does not identify as white, African-American, or Hispanic.
*strength: Strength of partisanship. Pre-standardized values: 0=true independent; 1=independent, partisan leaner; 2=weak partisan identifier; 3=strong partisan identifier.
*recruitment: Count from zero to eight of how many individuals a person names as having encouraged the respondent to get involved in politics.
*south: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent lives in the South.
*attendance: Factor scores for church attendance based on three measures.
*homeowner: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent owns his or her own home.
*wj_unemployed: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent is unemployed.
*civic: Factor scores for civic engagement based on three measures.
*ri_conslib: Seven-point scale of religious liberalism-conservatism. Higher values indicate the person is more liberal, while lower values are more conservative.
*cost: Factor scores for individualized religious strictness based on six measures of ways in which strictness might impose individual costs in one's life.
*evangelical: Indicator coded 1 if the respondent is a member of an evangelical church.
*protTrad: Categorical variable for Protestant tradition. 1=Pentecostal, 2=Charismatic, 3=Fundamentalist, 4=Evangelical, 5=Mainline Protestant, 6=Liberal Protestant.
